My true home

When we were asked at school where we wanted to live, what our dream country was, some were dreaming about Australia or Brazil, others wanted to go to Argentina or California in US – and it seemed as soon as we could, we would definitely go there – at least try what a miraculous life there was.

But we couldn’t – there was no money. And then the money started to come, and already, it seems, we could find our dream country for living, but then something changed – there were thousands of reasons why not now, why not this year, and then – why never.

Turkey, Egypt, Greece, and the famous Paris remained the biggest adventures, but we never stayed there longer than a week – because it’s expensive, because the holidays end, because we have to get back to work. Into our normal life.

And when we turned forty, we realized very painfully that we would not live in any dream country. That we would not dare to escape the safe routine anyway, and all of Australia was a dream that never come true.

Then we watch TV shows about those brave ones who went on adventures, settled on another edge of the Earth, some forever, others came back but came back changed, their eyes deepened, their world became wider.

I know a couple in their thirties who sold an apartment, bought a small yacht for that money, and sailed around the world. They did not consider what will happen when they return – they may not want to return at all. I know a forty-year-old woman who left a warm place in the ministry and moved to a distant Atlantic island, and although her friends threatened – “oh, you will never find your place there, how you will earn money, it’s hard to find a job in your age” – she lives and feels good.

I also spoke to a family in their fifties who returned from their dreams in New Zealand twelve years later. They do not regret a little: although they returned without accumulating wealth and started everything again in our country, they lived their dream for twelve years. 

Why they are back? ”You ask. Maybe because it was only here that they felt their home…

And my friend has been living in the Caribbean for fifteen years and has no plans to return. Went out just on vacation for a week, and on the seventh morning realized he didn’t want to go back. Thrown out the ticket and started another life. With a hundred dollars in your pocket.

If the student I was once came to me today, what would I tell him? That I didn’t find the time, the money, the opportunities, or maybe I just didn’t dare to go where I once dreamed?

That life did not get what I believed in?Or that I can still try – until it’s too late.

Or maybe I would tell  that already have found my true home, and it is here where I was born, that I feel best here and only here? I am feeling good at my country, although I love travel, especially in the Mediterranean, but my true home is here, in Lithuania.

 © Fortune, 2020